To the Moms who aren’t Moms yet

I know.

Let’s just start with that.

I know about the wondering, and the fears that come at night when no one is watching. I know how many times you’ve looked in the mirror and wondered why this is happening to you. I know how infertility cuts where we are all most vulnerable– right at our identity.

But today, I want to tell you: Happy Mother’s day.

Yes, you.

Because motherhood is won in more ways than just bearing children. And sometimes we don’t receive just what we want, but God is still calling us to great things.

On this day when mothers around the world are being celebrated, I want to take a moment to celebrate you. I see the hard road you’re walking (and sometimes barely crawling) down. I know, so well, the taste of the dust and heart-crushing pain from that desert path.

You are fighting a battle that could defeat the greatest warrior, so don’t be ashamed of your tears. Don’t let the enemy keep you trapped in your house, alone in your sorrow. Your battle is real and valid. There is no shame in Christ.

Comments

Natasha,
Thank you for what you do. I discovered your blog about a month ago through the Club 31 Women website that my sister had shared with me. Your words have been a source of life and encouragement for me.

This article means a lot to those of us who are single, but caring for other peoples’ babies and children. Right now, I watch my nephews and niece frequently. I also teach at our local Good News Club, I watched the Bible Study Fellowship Leaders’ kids on Tuesdays for a year, then I was a Children’s Leader for another year. One of my nephews I basically almost single handed took care of for the first 7 months of his life. I joke that I feel like I was a “Mom” to him for those months, as well as the Infants/Toddlers at Bible Study Fellowship for a year. My Church gives either flowers/plants or other gifts to all the mothers on mother’s day. There are three of us in my Church who are single, and it is kind of obvious that we don’t have flowers. I love it when mothers will ask/offer me to hold their babies. One mother who had just joined my Bible Study Fellowship group before her third one was born, asked me to hold the baby while she got her things in order. We hadn’t known each other for very long, but she trusted me enough to take her baby girl who wasn’t even 2 weeks of age yet. It really meant a lot when she asked me to hold the baby. I guess you could say I am a “heart” mother.
Thanks for sharing!
God Bless!
Bethany

“We serve a God who does great things from sorrow.” Natasha, dear, we serve a God who births great things from sorrow. I know that there is no sorrow to match that of a couple who are wanting children, but can’t conceive any or can conceive but not bring the babies to term. There are also many other ways that women can feel alone on “Mothers’ Day.” There is also the woman who has had a husband and children, who has lost her husband or child (or multiple children) through some accident or tragedy, or through one of the many ways that one can lose a still living spouse or child, all of which are painful and are tragedies. I have known the sorrow of having no husband, having no children, and then, later experienced marriage and a child, a miscarriage, and another child. From my perspective, having been single and childless, and having married at 36 and having my children at 38 and 43, I would say to you and your readers that no matter how deep your sorrow, no matter how very much alone you feel, you are not alone. You are never alone. Of course, God is with you, and he walks with you and sees every hurting step of yours along the way, just as he was with many women who wanted children and couldn’t have them, and just as he was with Hagar, who was forced to have a child that she may not have wanted, but Abraham wanted and Sarah wanted, and then didn’t want, and was cast away. When she, along with her child, was sent out into the desert to live or die, it didn’t matter, it mattered to God. He saw their tears. He heard their cries. He provided all that they needed, and said that he would make Ishmael into a great nation, because he was Abraham’s son. “More are the children of the desolate woman than of her who has a husband.”

It makes me angry when mothers are singled out to get a gift in a church service. I am glad when, if churches decide to give a gift, such as a plant, or a pen, they give one to every woman present, and not “mothers.” I always try to remember to say “Thank you,” to the single women who are teaching Sunday School or working in the nursery, or helping with the youth group, or babysitting other people’s children. Some men buy their wives corsages to wear to church that day, but not all do. My husband says, “You’re not my mother,” so he doesn’t think that he needs to do anything for me. One Mother’s Day I went around and picked some rose buds and flowers and made my own corsage. I wore it to church, but just as soon as I got inside the door I greeted an elderly lady who was the mother of the whole Classen clan at our church, and she said, “What a lovely corsage!” I noticed that she wasn’t wearing one, and so I pulled out the pin that was holding it, and said, “It’s yours, Elizabeth, ” and I pinned it on her. She was afraid that I was giving her something that my husband or children had meant for me, and I assured her that “No, no….I made it myself, and I want to give it to you.” My husband thinks that these holidays are created and sustained by the businesses who want to profit from them. I think that it is also about honoring others. Not only concerning who has children, but concerning all parts of life, we are so much happier when we look for whom we might honor rather than who might or might not honor us. As the new mother of a baby, I honored a young unmarried woman in our church in Pennsylvania on Mother’s Day, because I remembered all those years of being neglected in church on Mother’s Day, when I was not a mother. I don’t even remember how….if it was something I said to her, a gift or card I gave to her, or if I just sat beside her and let her hold my baby….but she remembers. She thanks me every time I see her, and has written about it 15 years later in a letter to me. She always says, “I’ll never forget the time you cared about me on Mother’s Day.” She is still single, living with and caring for her elderly parents, while all of her siblings are married and have families. I encourage you…..all of you….myself included, to ask God whom he would have you encourage on this Mother’s Day. The seemingly small thing you do might be remembered for the rest of that person’s life.

AND THANK YOU, Natasha, for coming to Alabama to care for Jacinda while I was on bed rest, waiting for Jasmina to be born. And remember how exciting it was, when I was put in the hospital and you got to be “Mom?” How old were you? Fifteen? And then, when Jasmina came two weeks early, and you didn’t have to go home before the baby was born after all? You were part of bringing her home, and took a lot of wonderful pictures of her. Love, your Aunt Judi

I would have loved to have been thought of in this way when I found out, less than a year into my first marriage, that we would not have children. That was 50+ years ago. Through the years I have been blessed with neices, nephews, babies of friends who called me Nana and remembered me on Mother’s Day, God children and best of all two granddaughters who have brought so much joy to my life.

When they were around 3 years of age and asked me why I never had any babies of my own, God put the words in my mouth; “He wanted me to save all that love for you.” I got the the biggest hugs from those two little girls. A moment I will never forget.